Child Soldiers Accountability Act of 2007

Floor Speech

CHILD SOLDIERS ACCOUNTABILITY ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - December 18, 2007)

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the Child Soldiers Accountability Act of 2007. This narrowly tailored bipartisan legislation would make it a crime and a violation of immigration law to recruit or use child soldiers. Congress must ensure that perpetrators who use children to wage war are held accountable and do not find safe haven in our country.

I would like to thank the other original cosponsors of the Child Soldiers Accountability Act, Senator TOM COBURN of Oklahoma, Senator RUSSELL FEINGOLD of Wisconsin, and Senator SAM BROWNBACK of Kansas. This bill is a product of the Judiciary Committee's new Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, which is the first ever congressional committee or subcommittee dealing specifically with human rights. I am the chairman of this Subcommittee and Senator Coburn is its ranking member.

The use of child soldiers has been reported in 21 ongoing or recent conflicts throughout the world since 2001, including conflicts in Colombia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sri Lanka. The proliferation of small arms, particularly lightweight automatic weapons that can be used by children as easily as by adults, has contributed to the increased use of child soldiers. Child soldiers are often used in conflicts where high desertion rates and insufficient volunteers have generated a shortage of soldiers.

For example, Burma is believed to be one of the countries with the largest number of child soldiers in the world. Burmese military recruiters reportedly buy and sell children in a desperate effort to meet recruitment quotas in a setting where low morale, high desertion rates and insufficient volunteers have created a military personnel crisis. In a report to the U.N. Security Council on children and armed conflict in Burma issued last month, the Secretary General stated that there has been tremendous pressure to accelerate recruitment rates in the Burmese armed forces and that recruitment centers have experienced difficulty meeting their quotas. The U.N. Secretary General's report also found that some children picked up by police in Burma without national identification cards are told they can ``choose'' to be arrested or enlist in the army. According to another report, children constitute a large percentage of privates in some of the new Burmese army battalions and some have been forced to participate in human rights abuses, including burning villages.

One Burmese boy was reportedly forcibly recruited twice by the time he was 16 years old. This boy was allegedly sold to a battalion by a corporal for approximately US$15, a sack of rice and a tin of cooking oil. When this boy's aunt and grandmother sought his release, the captain of the battalion company apparently said he would let the boy go in exchange for five new recruits. The boy reportedly told his aunt that he didn't want five other people to have to face what he had experienced in the army.

There is a clear legal prohibition on recruiting and using child soldiers. Under customary international law, recruitment or use of child soldiers under the age of 15 is a war crime. Over 110 countries, including the United States, have ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits the recruitment and use of child soldiers under 18.

Over the last few years, significant progress has been made in the prosecution of child soldier recruitment and use by international courts. In 2005, the International Criminal Court issued its first arrest warrants for five Lord's Resistance Army commanders from Uganda for, among other crimes, enlisting children as soldiers by two of the commanders. In February 2006, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Thomas Lubanga for the war crime of ``conscripting and enlisting children under the age of 15 years and using them to participate actively in hostilities.'' Mr. Lubanga, the first person to be arrested by the International Criminal Court, allegedly recruited children as young as ten years old to fight for the Union of Congolese Patriots in the northeastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In June 2007, the Special Court for Sierra Leone became the first international court to issue convictions for child soldier recruitment, finding three defendants guilty of crimes that included conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15. In August 2007, the Special Court for Sierra Leone found another defendant guilty of using child soldiers.

Despite these positive developments, the ability of international tribunals or hybrid courts to try these cases is limited. The average perpetrator still runs very little risk of being prosecuted. National courts can and should play a greater role in prosecuting perpetrators.

Unfortunately, recruiting and using child soldiers does not violate U.S. criminal or immigration law. As a result, the U.S. government is unable to punish individuals found in our country who have recruited or used child soldiers. In contrast, other grave human rights violations, including genocide and torture, are punishable under U.S. criminal and immigration law.

This loophole in the law was identified during ``Casualties of War: Child Soldiers and the Law,'' a hearing held by the Senate Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law. Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier and author of the bestselling book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, testified at this hearing. Mr. Beah said this gap in the law ``saddens me tremendously'' and that closing this loophole ``would set a clear example that there is no safe haven anywhere for those who recruit and use children in war.''

The Child Soldiers Accountability Act will help to ensure that the war criminals who recruit or use children as soldiers will not find safe haven in our country and will allow the U.S. Government to hold these individuals accountable for their actions.

First, this bill will make it a crime to recruit or use persons under the age of 15 as soldiers. Second, it will enable the government to deport or deny admission to an individual who recruited or used child soldiers under the age of 15.

This legislation will send a clear message to those adults who deliberately and actively recruit or use children to wage war that there are real consequences to their actions. By holding such individuals criminally responsible, our country will help to deter the recruitment and use of child soldiers.

Recognizing that adults often use drugs, threats, or other means to pressure child soldiers into committing serious human rights violations, including the recruitment of other children, this legislation seeks to hold adults accountable for their actions and is not intended to make inadmissible or deportable former child soldiers who participated in the recruitment of other children.

Former child soldiers require extensive care and support from family and others in order to be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society. As Mr. Beah testified, ``[h]ealing from the war was a long-term process that was difficult but very possible ..... Effective rehabilitation of children is in itself a preventive measure, and this should be the focus, not punitive measures against children that have no beneficial outcome for the child and society.'' This legislation should not be interpreted as placing new restrictions on or altering the legal status of former child soldiers who are seeking admission or are already present in the United States.

I urge my colleagues to ask themselves the question Ishmael Beah posed: Would we want our children or grandchildren to endure the pain and suffering that Mr. Beah and other child soldiers face? As Mr. Beah reminded us, the lives of child soldiers are just as important as those of our children and grandchildren. We have a moral obligation to take action to help these young people and to stop the abhorrent practice of recruiting and using child soldiers.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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